


Smoke break

by errantrose



Category: Batman - All Media Types, Maribat - Fandom, Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Awkward Conversations, Awkward Flirting, Bad Flirting, F/M, Light Swearing, Meet-Cute, Smoke Break, on the job, undercover at the club
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-27
Updated: 2020-04-27
Packaged: 2021-03-02 04:01:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,493
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23868685
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/errantrose/pseuds/errantrose
Summary: Jason was just looking to get the deets on the next big deal between rival crimelords. Too bad he didn't have the foresight to go undercover as a bouncer, not a bartender. While letting off steam in the back by taking a smoke break, the new server girl Marinette arrives. Chaos ensues.
Relationships: Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug/Jason Todd
Comments: 9
Kudos: 170





	Smoke break

**Author's Note:**

> I might make this a series if I decide on the criminal syndicate Jason is investigating, but for now, it's a one-shot. Character background in the endnotes.

He needed a smoke. Badly. This job wasn’t going anywhere fast and if he had to put on the charm and look away for the next drunk guy of the night looking to roofie the girl that's caught their eye, he’d go insane without a couple more hits of nicotine to keep his head on straight and the Pit at bay. 

Pushing away from the bar and nodding to his fellow bartender, he spoke, “Gonna take a 10 out back.”

Ryan gave a quick nod, making his way over to the next customer to take their order. Another rum and coke, it was like they were going out of style.

Jasson had taken this job to get an angle at the crime syndicate using the VIP lounges in the back as meeting spaces to hammer down deals, but he had to admit that the past three weeks he’d been working the bar might have been better put to use just knocking a few more lackies heads together to see if he could rattle the information out of their two-bit brains that way. Might have been quicker. It wasn’t like a bartender actually interacted with the VIPs when they worked the main floor at least. He should have at least aimed for a bouncer position that way he would have been within 30 feet of the rooms and could have bugged the place more thoroughly. Hindsight and all that.

Weaving through the kitchen and out the staff door leading to the back alley and the dumpsters, he patted-down his button down searching for the pack of Marlboros he swore he had on hand. 

“Fuck”, he muttered. No dice, his smokes must have been in the bike.

He was about to go searching in his motorcycle’s seat storage for them when the door leading back into the kitchen opened, illuminating a girl a few years younger than him stumbling outside, eyes locked onto him. As soon as she caught his gaze on her, she flushed and looked the other way. Jason swore he could hear a squeak come from her general vicinity and couldn’t help but wonder if it was an alley rat in search of food or the girl making the noise. Gotham may have some charm, but the urban animal life wasn’t one of them.

Visibly flustered, the dark haired girl fumbled with the items in her hand. The girl looked more likely to bowl herself over just existing rather than pose as any real danger to him but Jason still gave her a cursory look searching for weapons. Not the first time an enterprising Gothamite had tried to get the drop on him in an alleyway, so it didn’t hurt to check to see if she was a threat wearing sheepskin in search of a mark. 

The girl had a flushed tint to her face, just visible under the streetlamps as a light shadow on her cheeks. The smokes and lighter in her hand seems to almost jump through her fingers no matter how many times she readjusted her hands, and the amount of nervous tension wafting off her was concerning. There were no bulges indicating a knife or a gun, but the energy she seemed to exhume was putting his teeth on edge. 

Suddenly, the girl blurted, “I smokes! Um...I’m just out here for a smoke! Yeah…” Saying that, the girl took another step out into the alley, letting the kitchen door swing shut making background noise die away. She seemed to forget the last step and almost tumbled headlong into the other side of the alleyway before getting her hands up just in time to crush the pack of smokes then whirl around with a frazzled look. 

Snorting a bit, Jason couldn’t help but think this girl was more like a bumbling kitten than a killer. No fucking way that level of ditziness was a ploy. Though he hadn’t seen her around all that much, he semi-recognized her as one of the new serving girls who helped out with drink orders on the floor. 

“Be my guest kid, I’d be right here with you but I seem to have dropped my cigs somewhere. See ya round kid.” Jason said, turning towards the mouth of the alleyway as he resigned himself to turning his 10 minute break into a 15 to retrieve his smokes from his bike parked in the parking lot next door. 

“Wait!” the girl desperately called.

Pausing, Jason tilted his torso back in her direction, shifting his legs into a ready position out of habit. 

“Wait, um, I uh, did you just want to just have one of mine?” Saying this, she thrust her hand with the smokes out.

Cocking his head, he looked at her. The shiftiness was back, but at least she was staying in one place. Wary, but well aware that he needed to get back to his post inside soon to keep playing his character, Jason shifted back towards the girl. If he wanted two cigs rather than just one (c’mon, what remained of his sanity was on the line here), he’d have to take her offer. 

“What’s your name kid?” Jason mused as he swept the crushed pack of cigarettes from the girl's hand, looking through for the unbroken ones and any possible tricks inside the box.

“Ma..Marinette. Um, and you?”

“Jax.” Jason responded. Taking his own lighter and a few cigs (sadly only one unbroken one, that must have been some impact she took to the alley wall), he lit up, the smoke billowing through his lungs and exhaling out of his nose, eyes steady on the girl opposite him. Marinette was a bit fascinating to watch, he had to admit. She seemed to almost vibrate forwards one second and retreat the next. He handed her back the pack of smokes, taking another drag as his eye lingered on the tension tightening and releasing from her frame. 

Her hands pulled a bent cigarette out of the box, but instead of straightening it or breaking it at the bend, she tried to light it. Amused, Jason looked on as she seemed to panic. 

“Need a light?” he asked?

Deer-in-the-headlights-eyes looked up at him. She seemed to shake it off and smiled brightly, “Could you”?” she replied.

Lighting the stick with a quick flick of his thumb and a slight lean to keep the slight wind moving through the alleyway from extinguishing the flame, he moved a bit closer to watch this unfold.

Her hand darted to her mouth as her gaze skittered away, her mouth meeting the filter and taking a light breath in. Choking, she couldn’t even get a complete breath in before the bent cigarette and her protesting lungs made it impossible to get a clear drag before the end flickered out and the barest amount of smoke she could get in was immediately expelled from her lungs. Jason couldn’t help but let out an amused chuckle at the sight. 

Once his laughter slowed and he was able to take another suck on the filter, he called out, “Some smoke break, huh? What are you even doing out here if you haven’t smoked before.” 

By this time, Marinette’s gaze was jumping away and the shadowed blush on her face looked deeper in the yellow overhead glow. “Not my finest moment, huh?” She ruefully responded.

“Nope” he cheerfully replied. “After that spectacular landing against the wall, all those bent cigarettes need to be straightened to keep them lit, though it seems like your lungs would have appreciated the cig to remain unlit if all that choking was an indicator of something.”

A light smile graced her face as she said “I appreciate the tips but I probably won’t be doing that again. That smoke tasted foul.”

“Eh, you get used to it.” Jason took another pull, his shoulder muscles loosening from their ready position after a full night at the bar and the spectacularly shifty entrance Marinette had made.

A short silence ensued, Jason in a relaxed ready position and Marinette leaning against the door casing, both content to let the moment exist out of time.

After watching Jason finish most of his singular unbroken smoke, Marinette pushed off the casing and with a gusty sigh admitted “Well then, that was a trip. This will be the last time I try to talk to a cute guy on his smoke break. See ya around, Jax.” with that said, Marinette hand drifted to the door handle.She flitted back inside with a lingering lopsided smile, leaving Jason to bark out a laugh as the last of his tension receded in the face of that surprise statement. Marinette was a force of chaos, that was for sure. 

_Perhaps he didn’t need that second smoke after all_ , Jason thought with his own small grin. _Not with girls like that to keep the job interesting._ He’d have to keep an eye out for Marinette.

**Author's Note:**

> Marinette has moved to Gotham to pursue her fashion degree at Gotham University. As with all international students except the extremely rich, she's a bit tight on money and the green card biz is a lil b. She decides to supplement her income as a server girl at the local club, which is, of course, a front for crime activity (this is Gotham, there's crime in every business - I mean come on, even the billionaire philanthropist Bruce Wayne can't say he's not connected to crime even if it's just through punching crime in the face). Marinette's taken the job because it pays under the table and it pays well, and her time as Ladybug has made long nights and dangerous circumstances par for the course. Jason is Red Hood, and is this || close to stabbing the next would-be rapist in full view of the club manager just to get the ball rolling but is content to let his persona "Jax" play nice and sleight-of-hand swap the roofied drinks for clean ones in the interim. Doesn't mean he's not keeping tabs of their credit card tab and planning to rough them up as Red Hood at a later date. He's gucci like that.


End file.
